Ski slopes, totem pole strikes and tinkering managers - it’s deja-vu all over again for England and Norway
Can England make the metaphorical leap from the Alamo to the Andes
Rob Shepherd, Columnist
The day before England’s infamous World Cup qualifying defeat to Norway in June 1993, I bumped into Graham Taylor at the top of a ski jump. It was still an active monolith of the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics.
Along with fellow football hack Cathal Dervan, now of this parish, I had opted for an early morning stroll in advance of a pre-match press conference ahead of a crucial World Cup qualifier.
We were a bit taken aback when we happened upon England manager Taylor about to pose for the press photographers in front of the said ski jump, just a few yards from our mountain side hotel.
I couldn’t resist the quip: ‘Blimey, Graham, you now realize how brave Eddie the Eagle actually was, don’t ya!!?’”
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Let me assure you, you don’t have to have even a hint of vertigo to suffer high anxiety as you look down an Olympic ski jump. Dervan then chipped in: “It’s a LONG way down.”
Taylor, in a seemingly buoyant mood, offered one of his toothpaste smiles and bantered back something along the lines about us chaps always looking for an angle, seemingly oblivious that he was offering the snappers a picture caption on a plate.
Indeed, the chaotic 2-0 defeat the following day set off the chain of events that led to England failing to qualify for the 1994 World Cup finals and, pun alert, sent Taylor for the high jump.
Those familiar with the fly-on-the- wall documentary about Taylor’s tenure as England boss – The Impossible Job aka Do I Not Like That – will know the narrative and many can recite much of the script.
The tense cameo I had with Taylor a few months later in Holland is often cited as the tipping point for him as England manager. The worries expressed about his team selection for the make or break match against the Dutch had all the hallmarks of the bizarre tinkering we had first seen in Norway and were duly exposed by a covert camera in Rotterdam.
That historic tinkering was the reason for my angst ahead of what proved to be a 2-0 defeat to the Dutch, a result which ensured England’s elimination from USA ’94 and the end of Taylor.
The real damage had been done in Norway and looking back, that vignette of bumping into Taylor on a mountain edge wasn’t just a cartoon cut-out of what was to come but a metaphor for the sense of hubris that had imbued him.
If it went pear shaped in Norway, it had started to unpeel a few days earlier in Poland. Taylor should have accepted, in the wider context, that a 1-1 draw amidst the intimidating atmosphere of Chorzow was a decent point, especially as England had been taken apart in a fierce first-half.
It was during this period of the game that an exasperated Taylor utters the line ‘Do I Not Like That’ on camera as Poland pave their way to an opening goal.
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Yet the team battled on and Ian Wright, coming on as a sub, scored a late equalizer, his first international goal. Instead of relief, Taylor turned his focus afterwards to reservations about the players mentality.
After the standard media duties had been done – he then ‘briefed’ the number one football writers of the national daily papers for a ‘follow up’ piece. As things were done back then.
We were all huddled in a cramped dressing room with sweaty socks strewn on the floor and the smell of liniment oil rife. Dissecting the performance - especially in the first half - Taylor described his players as ‘Headless Chickens’. And that bit was on the record.
By now it was Saturday night. All the match reports for the Sunday papers and media outlets had long been filed. But the headlines for Monday morning had already been set in stone - with Taylor’s disparaging quote.
In those days, the press and media corps flew on the same plane as the team. When we got to Oslo airport, Paul Ince, whom I knew well, and Wright came over for a chat and asked what the papers would say.
I told them that the next day - in the Sundays - it would be something along the lines of super sub hero Wright’s first international goal saving England’s face but I added, a bit sheepishly, that I was afraid come Monday it was going to be a bit of a kicking, with the analysis being led by Taylor’s quote.
When I relayed to them the Headless Chickens line, they both looked a bit dumfounded at first, then more than a bit pissed off.
The word quickly spread. The mood in the England camp over the next two days was further vexed by Taylor volunteering that there was an issue with how Paul Gascoigne - still wearing a mask because of a cheekbone injury - ‘refueled’, especially after games.
There was also confusion to compound the consternation. Taylor used limited time in the two training sessions to completely change tactics. Obsessed with Norway’s beanpole striker Jan Age Fjortoft , Taylor opted for three at the back but insisted England would go on the front foot and exploit their attacking strengths yet returned Wright to the bench.
Chaos unfolded in the Ulleval stadium that Wednesday night, as Norway surpassed their heroes of 1981, winning 2-0 and pushing England’s World Cup campaign to the edge of the ski slope.
The images of the tormented Taylor and a synchronized arm folding, head nodding coach Phil Neal alongside as they watched the horror show unfold, are in the mould of a Monty Python sketch.
Taylor later acknowledged that he hadn’t given himself enough time to make such sweeping changes, but what the documentary didn’t reveal was that several players had gone into the game finding it hard to buy into what the manager had sought tactically and emotionally, not least because of the Headless Chicken comment.
The tour to the USA soon after was a disaster rather than the dress rehearsal for the following summer it was supposed to be.
In October that year, Taylor would again make baffling team changes for that decisive game in Holland, having not learned the lessons from tinkering too much in Norway.
It all seems such a long time ago. Planet Football is in a different universe now. Yet over the years, England have further displayed an apparent phobia when it comes to playing nations of Viking stock.
And there is the obvious parallel of Norway having the threat of another totem striker. Not that there is too much further comparison between Fjortoft - who secured a move to the mighty Swindon from Rapid Vienna on the back of that game - and Erling Haaland, other than they are both really tall.
We know Haaland is a genuine phenomenon who is already up there with the all-time World Cup giants while Fjortoft ended up playing for Barnsley. Although, to be fair, he is still regarded as a bit of a Ledge in Norway’s Hall of Fame even to family Haaland.# Erling, however, is their Thor.
No doubt England boss Thomas Tuchel will have contingencies to deal with him but they are more likely to be how best to cut his supply line rather than substantial formation or personnel changes.
Unless that is, Dan Burn comes in....
It goes without saying this World Cup quarter-final is make or break for Tuchel. So he has big, big calls to make.
And Tuchel’s in-game management and substitutions impressed.
Certainly one assumes Tuchel will have used that enormous victory - England’s best in a tournament on foreign soil - to have bolstered the squad’s mindset, so much so that they can truly believe they can overcome this tricky precipice of facing Norway and climb on towards the World Cup summit.
After all it would only likely be the small matter of scaling the Andes next...
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